


Sense-Memory

by SilverDagger



Category: Claymore
Genre: Families of Choice, Ficlet, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-31
Updated: 2011-12-31
Packaged: 2017-10-28 13:50:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/308523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilverDagger/pseuds/SilverDagger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Monsters or otherwise, children are still children, and sometimes it makes sense to be afraid of the dark. A quick vignette featuring the new set of unnamed twins, set some time after the most recent manga chapter (121), with slight spoilers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sense-Memory

Before they are anything else, before they are monsters or girls, the twins are warriors. They have been trained to discipline, conditioned to absolute obedience – and they are not easily frightened. In fact, if ever asked, they would answer that they are not frightened at all.

They would be wrong, or lying.

Fear has been their oldest companion, after all – sleeping beside them on stone floors, whistling through cracks in fortress walls as wind howls down from high places, tears the branches from the trees. It is a thing to be trusted, they know. Fear, like hunger, means only that it wants you to survive, and to endure.

Those walls are rubble now. Grass grows in the old barracks yards, and up around the bars of cages, and covers the bones of the men who had held the keys. But memory goes deeper than that, sinks claws into flesh and does not let go, and fear is not so easy a thing to put behind you. The body does not know that storms are only storms, that dark is only dark. The muscles tense, the heartrate quickens. Impulses scatter and gather along the nerves. Humans tell stories of monsters, out beyond the circle of firelight, and there are things more terrible than wind and lightning in this world that they have fought, that they _are_. But they huddle beneath the overhang with hands clasped together, looking out past the flames and into the rain-soaked darkness, and if they were human children they might be trembling now.

They are not human children.

They do not tremble, or cry, or turn their eyes away from the fathomless night beneath the trees. They keep watch as the others rest, scan the night for a hint of hostile youki, for enemies approaching. They keep their swords sharp and close to hand, though claws and teeth and blades would serve them as well, or better. They do not show weakness.

There is the sound of footsteps behind them – a shift in air currents, the rustle of pine needles beneath heavy boots. Not an enemy, though. No threat, even if he was, but he isn't. They know his name, and that he has fought men and walked with monsters, and that he has been a prisoner too.

“You scared?” he asks, crouching down beside them, a dark, solid shape against the firelight. _Raki,_ they think, _fellow-warrior, older-brother_.They can feel his warmth, the white puff of his breath in the chilly air, the human heart beating beneath the fragile cage of his ribs.

 Fear, like hunger, can be ( _must be_ ) ignored.

“It's wild out there,” he says, “but it's just weather. Can't hurt anyone. Though I guess it is a little scary, huh?” His voice is low and rhythmic, soothing, like he's talking to children. To human children. They think he doesn't understand, and then wonder if maybe he does.

“It's alright,” one of them says, in her soft habitual monotone, and they lean against him, fold themselves into the crook of his arms. “You don't have to worry. We'll keep you safe.”

**Author's Note:**

> Figures that instead of all the epic main character femslash I want to read for this fandom, my first attempt at writing fic would focus on two characters who don't even have names, plus... Raki. Go me?


End file.
